Natural green earths, such as Verona green, are transparent and are absolutely permanent in oil. Most oil colors labeled "green earth" from artists' paint manufacturers do not actually contain the natural mineral, but rather is a mixture of synthetic chromium oxide green and sometimes barium sulfate with either a natural yellow ochre or yellow iron oxide. Rublev Oil Colours Verona Green earth contains only the actual mineral from Verona, Italy and linseed oil.

Verona Green Earth was used in verdaccio--a style of underpainting that uses green-grey colors to establish values for later layers of paint. Verdaccio is renowned for being particularly effective when painting flesh tones. It was popular amongst Italian Renaissance artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci who used verdaccio underpainting in his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.

Rublev Oil Colour: Verona Green EarthNote: Colors swatches are shown in mass tone, straight from the tube, on the left, and mixed with an equal amount of Titanium white on the right. All pictures of color swatches in this web site are only approximations of the actual color of the oil paint. We taken every care to match the color in these pictures on calibrated color monitors to the actual color. However, because of the wide variance in color monitors the results you get may vary.